Is it just me or is this some scary stuff?

[JANdad]

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court brushed aside free-speech concerns on Monday as it upheld a law that made it a crime to promote child pornography.

Cut: The law does not require that someone actually possess child pornography, merely that they were seeking to obtain or distribute it.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i166e2aeceb59a4e1f1017b114f9dbeec

Now for the love of all that is...I don't know...whatever, please do not think that I believe child porn is in anyway OK...on the contrary I find it disgusting and morally reprehensible. With that being stated, I find this ruling truly scary. No crime has to be commited...just words spoken or written...

[FirstLight]

1. I see your point BUT

since I have a serious aversion to this smut I say GOOD!
they should do more than just slap people on the wrist for this crap, they should ENFORCE serious therapy or something to make sure they aren't molesting kids. But that's just my personal anger talking. I see the whole civil rights thing in this...but child porn is one of THE absolute evils and needs to be stopped on ALL fronts!! That means the distribution, promotion, and consumption of it...


(my ex was addicted to it and may have abused our 2 yr old, so it's a touchy subject, he only got a misdemeanor...and was free to live right next to a school bus stop...yikes)

[JANdad]

2. But one does not even have to have pssoesion

of said material...simply stating they do is all it takes...that to me is scary...

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Think of the children!

:sarcasm:

Every protect-the-children crusade in history has done NOTHING for children. Such mass frenzies are occasions for public masturbation which also enable a few small-beer tyrants to feather their nests.

Pedo stings have done more to stoke the desires of latent pedophiles than all the kiddie porn ever produced. It's time we stopped creating the very evil we claim to want to stamp out.

--p!

[pnwmom]

15. Suppose you didn't have possession of a gun. Would that make it okay

to agree to take money to carry out a shooting?

[emilyg]

3. Very good.

[Breeze54]

4. This is scary stuff !! - I didn't think it would pass!

If you e-mail the grand parents pics of the baby taking a bath and
state in the subject line, "Hubba, hubba!"; you could be arrested.

We can NOT lose the GE!! We just can't.... :banghead:

[Lasher]

6. Wouldn't this be a conspiracy to commit an offense?

An individual in this case would be at least attempting to conspire, no?

[JANdad]

7. I'm not a lawyer...

But I play one on TV...lol

Seriously...The only thing I can liken this to would be yelling "Fire" in a theater...

[Rageneau]

8. Thoughtcrime is doubleplus ungood.

[Jack_DeLeon]

9. So does this also make "Fake" Child Porn illegal again?

I remember reading a while back about how drawings and animation of such were made illegal and that went to the court too?

[pnwmom]

10. "Seeking to obtain or distribute" means it was an attempted crime.

Attempted crimes are often prosecuted. Suppose someone hired someone -- or attempted to hire someone -- to kill someone else. All they did was talk about it though -- the murder didn't actually take place. Are you saying that because it was only "talk" it shouldn't be prosecuted?

[appleseedshooter]

11. I don't know sounds rather reasonable to me

I mean we put reasonable controls on any number of things guns, cars

[Ghost in the Machine]

12. No different than "conspiracy to possess marijuana" or "conspiracy to possess cocaine" or

as someone said above, "conspiracy to commit murder" by talking to someone about hiring them to kill your spouse. The crime was committed when you attempted to obtain something you knew was illegal. Period.

If you walk into a store and say "this is a stick-up", but the clerk shoots you before you pull a gun, you're still charged with "attempted" robbery.

It's all in the intent...

[Breeze54]

13. It's actually pretty open ended and could effect anyone just sending an e-mail

Remember the the NSA and the spying on all our e-mails and phone calls? We were and still are pissed off... this is the same. It's a poorly written law according to a Law Professor expert on PBS...

[pnwmom]

14. Don't you think it would depend on what the email said?

Maybe no one should send any emails offering to sell or buy child porno.

There's a thought.

[Breeze54]

18. But that isn't the only scope in this!!! - Doesn't it scare you

that someone could misinterpret your e-mail you sent with an innocent subject and they turn you in?

See post # 4.

"It's fine with me if they listen to my calls. I have nothing to hide."

Remember that meme?

[pnwmom]

20. Maybe. But I don't think a prosecution would get very far with a single

"misinterpreted" email.

[librechik]

16. don't worry, eventually they'll get tired of the expense and social upheaval

caused by all the prosecutions of thought crimes and incarcerations of wrong-thinking citizens. Child porn is a heinous crime, they won't get anybody saying no on this one. The next one will be a little different, maybe the "rave" law, but that's only those terrible druggies and hippies that get put away, so that's ok too. But really, who wants such a large proportion of the population in prison?

Unless they figure out a way for corporations to profit from it, then it'll last forever and get bigger and bigger.

D'OH!

[lame54]

17. it's a thought-crime...

[Breeze54]

19. Dissent argues law is too vague

Supreme Court Upholds Child Pornography Law

The Supreme Court upheld a 2003 federal law's provision criminalizing the promotion or presentation
of child pornography. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal analyzes the Court's decision.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june08/childporn_05-19.html

Dissent argues law is too vague

GWEN IFILL: So there were two, obviously, dissents at least on this. What were their arguments? And who was that?

MARCIA COYLE: Justice Stevens -- I'm sorry, Justice Souter wrote a dissent, and he was joined by Justice Ginsburg. And they felt that the law was overbroad, that it actually would reach things like virtual child pornography, which is protected under the First Amendment.

And they just disagreed that the law was not vague. They felt that there had been no showing that the juries and the government were having a hard time getting prosecutions prior to the enactment of this particular law.

And that was the argument the groups like the Free Speech Coalition and libraries made. States that supported the government in this case claimed that the anti-pandering provision was a crucial law enforcement tool, especially since the Supreme Court said that you can't criminalize virtual child pornography.

But these other groups felt that you were putting at risk and chilling legitimate speech with the threat of a long jail term under this provision.

Presentation and promotion at issue

GWEN IFILL: Now, this case involved a man who was convicted of trafficking in child pornography. But what he challenged was not his conviction, per se. It was something called pandering?

MARCIA COYLE: He pled guilty to two charges, the possession of pornography, which he did not challenge. He raised a constitutional challenge to another provision in the Protect Act known as the anti-pandering provision.

And that targets anyone who knowingly presents, promotes, advertises, distributes, or even solicits material that reflects the belief or induces you, someone else, to believe that the material is child pornography.

He claimed, and a lower court agreed, that that provision was too broad, too vague, that it swept so broadly, that it brought in -- it violated the First Amendment by criminalizing protected speech.

GWEN IFILL: Like, say, a movie trailer which might show what appeared to be sex between minors?

MARCIA COYLE: That's right. That was one of the hypotheticals that the lower court found problems with.

The lower court also suggested an e-mail that had photo attachments and a message line saying something like, "Little Janey in bathtub, hubba-hubba," could get parents or grandparents in trouble if the photos were just simply of a baby taking a bath.

more...

[madmom]

21. What if some one sends you an e-mail with kiddie-porn and you open it, not

knowing what it is, does that mean you accepted it? are in possession of it? down loaded it? Much to vague.

[treestar]

22. As long as there is actual physical evidence, it should not be a problem

To meet the burden of proof - a person cannot be punished for their thoughts, because there can never be proof of their thoughts, there has to be evidence of some overt act.